Advertising that is a Waste of Time AND Money

 

ADVERTISING THAT IS
A WASTE OF TIME AND MONEY
By Jim “Gymbeaux” Brown, October 1, 2026

Every household, regardless of how many people reside in the home, have the same “needs” and “wants.” What is a “need?”  It is something, someone, or some service that the homeowner/tenant absolutely MUST HAVE! They cannot do without it! What is a “want?”  That is something that a person would simply “like” to have but does not necessary must have it. 

Homeowners may eventually need the services and/or products from the list of people. The “want” may eventually become a “need,” a MUST HAVE over time. It is important to understand that a person does not currently have a MUST HAVE requirement for them at this very moment but will eventually need them. If you were to ask them TODAY to name a person that could provide what they need, they could not. Keep that in mind as you review the list: 

Primary Care Doctor

Medical Specialist (orthopedic, pediatric, neurology, etc.)

Electrician

Plumber

Handyman

Lawn Treatment

Lawn Care

Pest Control

Real Estate Agent

Home Insurance Agent

Car Insurance Agent

Car Mechanic

Politician (running for office)

Barber

Beautician

Attorneys (family, business, accident, injury, etc.) 

The list is endless; the above list identifies the various people who would be the most often needed. It has been my experience that most of the people representing these categories have attempted to ADVERTISE to the public using the shotgun approach. By shotgun, I mean that they send out mail, create radio and/or television commercials and more recently, insert commercials on the various social media sites. Facebook inserts a small “ad” at the top of such commercials because a great many appear as stories where people identify a program that most of us experience and then explain their solution by promoting a product or a service. These commercials aim at no one in particular. You are aiming the advertising piece at everyone hoping that the message noticed by that one person who needs the product or service being promoted. Marketing is more a form of advertising, but you market your product and service to specific people such as friends, family or people in your contact database list or family phone directories. Marketing enjoys a greater degree of success than advertising to the public does. Advertising is more of a “hit or miss” activity. 

Some of the people representing the services listed above spend a great deal of money creating full color very slick mail pieces of ADVERTISING that they mail to the general public hoping that someone who receives it has a need at that very moment for what they are attempting to sell to you, the general public. As the graphic would suggest, most of these slick advertising pieces cost a lot of money to produce yet most and I do mean most, go directly “from the mailbox to the trashcan!”  That one very short comment was the best advice I had ever received, and it was from a successful real estate agent. 

He said, and this is the primary lesson to be taken from this Nugget, he said, you want to recipient of your advertising and even your marketing pieces, to identify who sent or published the material, what do they do that they are selling, how to contact them, and if the law requires, the name of the company they represent. 

This agent did not spend a lot of money on his advertising pieces. In fact, he made them on his desktop computer and printer; it is hard to believe that something you create at your desk would be so inexpensive, easy to create, yet work better than anything he had ever tried. Here you go! 

1. Create a 4-up post card on a normal 8x11 sheet of card stock, no paper, harder card stock.
2. Keep the message as simple as possible (see below).
3. Use a paper cutter and cut one 4-up sheet of four post cards into four individual post cards.
4. If necessary, reverse the card stock before you cut them into fours, so you can print your required information on the reverse side of the postcard if necessary. 

You have just created an advertising piece that is cheap, easy to create and one that you can easily change on your desktop should you need to change them in the future because you saved the setup and information as a file on your computer. Now for the important part. Keeping in mind the above comments, this is what appears on the “meat” side of the post card: 

THINK REAL ESTATE
THINK JIM BROWN
(PHONE NUMBER/WEB ADDRESS)
(In real estate, the name of the company would also be required) 

That is it. Put yourself in the position of a homeowner going to the mailbox. What is the first thing you do? You look to see who the mail is addressed to and who it is from. Most people would have already put the mail into two or three piles. Pile number one! Mail destined for the trash can. That would include this agent’s postcard. Mail addressed to a member in the home. If there were more than one person in the home, there would be a stack for each member, and this would all be done before the person picking up the mail gets back to the front door! 

The real estate agent would use the occasion of the season and change the color of the card stock to represent the season. Red or Green for Christmas. Purple for Easter. Orange for Halloween and Thanksgiving. Red for the 4^th of July. Red for use around Valentine’s Day. Otherwise, the cardstock would be white paper. Putting the color of the paper aside, THE MESSAGE WAS ALWAYS THE SAME! NO MORE, NO LESS! 

Why did he use the same message with each mailing? It becomes very familiar! When things are the same, they are much easier to remember and that is what he was his objective. When a person needed a real estate agent or a friend or neighbor needed a real estate agent, whose name would they think of first even thought they had never met him? 

To put an exclamation mark on this thought, think of your own life. Can you instantly recall the name of a plumber? An electrician? A family lawyer? An injury attorney? Anyone from the list provided above. For most people, they could not. In my geographic area the ONE exception would be for an injury attorney. Why is that so? If you listened to the 12:00 noon news on any channel, you see one commercial after another for injury attorneys. I counted them for one 30-minute news broadcast, there were ELEVEN injury attorney commercials – ELEVEN! They all say the same thing, “I can get you the most money!”  As a side note, what the commercials DO NOT say is that these attorneys get to keep 30 to 40 percent of any settlement that they get for their clients. I personally find that outrageous and explain why car insurance is so high in my state and city. That can work against injury attorneys because the number AND content of so many injury attorney commercials turn the view off rather than creating a favorable memory of the attorney(s). 

Some real estate agents send out full color shinny large and small postcards to show a property owner that they either listed a home for sale in their area or they recently sold a home in their area and the card is loaded with colorful photographs; very professionally done! If a homeowner does NOT have an immediate NEED for a realtor, the slick postcard goes from the mailbox to the trashcan. As a real estate agent with over thirty-three years in the real estate business, whenever I think of such cards going from the mailbox to the trashcan, I envision the recipient taking dollar bills (more like twenty-dollar bills) being removed from their mailbox and going directly into their trashcan. Then multiply that by the number of pieces mailed. It is overwhelming. 

Compare that cost to the cost of mailing out a small postcard created on your own desktop and printer. The cost of postage remains the same. The cost of materials and production are miles apart! 

The key to making this process successful is NOT sending out one postcard and thinking that it is going to be dollar productive. It may generate a call from a person who needs a real estate professional at the very moment the card is removed from the mailbox but the chances of that happening are zero. The key is repetition. How would YOU feel if you received such a card one? Twice a year? Four times a year? Six times a year? I can guarantee that you could send out multiple cards every year and still not spend as much as it would cost to send out a two-sided full-colored postcard just once! 

Ensuring that that you cover all the legal aspects, here is a fictious sample of a card that I would send out: 

THINK REAL ESTATE
THINK JIM “GYMBEAUX” BROWN

(phone number, smaller than your name but large enough to see)
(website address, it should be simple and easily remembered, same size as phone)
REAL ESTATE PROFESSIONALS
Each Office Independently Owned and Operated 

NOTE: The legal requirements such as my company name and the office disclaimer can be as small as you want, but it must appear. 

NOTE:   The less information required means you can make your name and what you do as large as possible, so large it could and should use the entire space on the card! 

What would I put on the reverse side? You may not be required but you could insert the full name and mailing address of the company in the upper left-hand corner where it would typically be located. Is that necessary? Not really, inserting additional information on the back costs very little but it does take twice the time to create the card. Personally, I do not think it is necessary. 

Addressing the post cards. You do NOT want to address the cards by hand, foolish and time consuming. Remember, your main objective is to simply get the card INTO the desired mailboxes. You do NOT even need to address the postcard to a name; in fact, I would avoid a name unless there is a local requirement that it be included. Why address it to just a street number and name, city, state, and zip code? Because you do not want to insult the homeowner by addressing it to “Homeowner.” You do not know if the homeowner on your database still lives there but someone does. When you address it just to the street name and number, whoever lives in the home will receive it and that is your objective. 

If you want to try this process, do not do it once or twice and then decide it does not work. It must be something that becomes routine, habitual, and non-stop! Real Estate agents could also insert one additional line when appropriate such as “ADDRESS – JUST LISTED!”  Or “ADDRESS – JUST SOLD” Now you are demonstrating WHO you are, WHAT you do, and example of WHAT you do, your phone number, your website address, and any other required information. KEEP IT SIMPLE STUPID is one of the best rules to follow – ALWAYS!